FOOTNOTES:
[104] Account of additions to the Huth Library, by Mr. A.H. Huth, in Mr. Quaritch's Dictionary of English Book-Collectors.
ROBERT SAMUEL TURNER, 1818-1887
Mr. Robert Samuel Turner was born in 1818. Although engaged in commercial affairs from his youth he was a most enthusiastic book-collector, and at a very early age began to form that noble library, with which only a few collections of his time could vie in value, extent or condition. Mr. Turner principally directed his attention to the acquisition of rare Italian, French and Spanish books. His English books were not numerous, and there were but few German ones in the collection, but some of them were of much interest. He possessed one of the finest copies in existence of the first folio of Shakespeare's Plays, and an exceptionally good example of the Tewrdannck. He always endeavoured to obtain the best and choicest copies possible, and many of them, especially the French volumes, were clothed in beautiful bindings, bearing the arms or devices of Grolier, Maioli, Diana of Poitiers, Count Mansfeld, Cosmo de' Medici, Thomas Wotton, Longepierre, Count von Hoym, and other famous collectors. Mr. Turner resided for some years in Park Square West, Regent's Park, London, but in 1878 he removed to the Albany, Piccadilly. In anticipation of his change of residence he determined to part with a portion of his collection of French books, and on the valuation of the late M. Potier, of Paris, he offered it to an eminent French amateur en bloc for four thousand pounds. This offer was declined, and he sent the books to Paris to be sold by auction. The sale took place at the Salle Drouot on the 12th of March 1878, and the four following days, when the lots, seven hundred and seventy-four in number, realised three hundred and nineteen thousand one hundred francs—considerably more than three times the sum Mr. Turner was willing to take for them. After his death, which occurred at Brighton on the 7th of June 1887, the remainder of his library was disposed of in two sales by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge: the first on June 18th, 1888, and the eleven following days, and the second on November 23rd, 1888, and the thirteen following days. They realised respectively thirteen thousand three hundred and seventy pounds, thirteen shillings, and two thousand eight hundred and seventy-four pounds, seventeen shillings and sixpence. The prices obtained for the books, especially at the French sale, were very high. A dedication copy to Mademoiselle de Montpensier, with the signature of Charles de Lorraine on the title-page, of Recueil des Portraits et Éloges en vers et en prose (de personnages du temps par Mademoiselle de Montpensier et autres), Paris, 1659, with a morocco binding of the seventeenth century, ornamented with fleurs-de-lis, fetched fourteen thousand francs; La Fontaine's Fables Choisies, five volumes, Paris, 1678, 1679 and 1694, bound by Boyet, eleven thousand nine hundred and fifty francs; Les Fais de Jason, par Raoul Le Febvre, printed at Lyons about 1480, seven thousand six hundred francs; Le Livre appelle Mandeville, Lyon, 1480, six thousand two hundred and fifty francs; Les [OE]uvres de Guillaume Coquillant, Paris, 1532, five thousand four hundred and fifty francs; and Les [OE]uvres de Molière, eight volumes, Paris, 1739, with additional plates, five thousand francs. Among the books at the English sales the exceptionally fine and large copies of the Tewrdannck, Nuremberg, 1517, and the Aldine Poliphili Hypnerotomachia, sold respectively for two hundred and fifty pounds and one hundred and thirty-seven pounds; a copy of Paesi Novamente Retrovati, Vicentia, 1507, with the title in facsimile, for one hundred and eighty-six pounds; and Shakespeare's Poems, 1640, for one hundred and six pounds. The first folio of Shakespeare Mr. Turner sold privately to an American collector. A Grolier binding realised three thousand francs; another binding with the devices of Diana of Poitiers, four thousand four hundred francs; a book from the library of Longepierre, two thousand five hundred francs; two sets of volumes with doublures by Boyet, respectively four thousand francs and three thousand nine hundred francs; and Rogers's Italy and Poems, with beautiful bindings by Bedford, sixty-one pounds.
Mr. Turner was an accomplished linguist, and he possessed a wide and accurate knowledge of the literary history and bibliography of France, Italy and Spain. He was also a collector of rare and beautiful bindings before the interest and value of these works of art were generally appreciated.
FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON, 1821-1895
Mr. Locker Lampson.
Mr. Frederick Locker, the author of London Lyrics and other volumes of delightful light and social verse, was born in 1821. His father was Mr. E.H. Locker, a Civil Commissioner of Greenwich Hospital, and founder of the Naval Gallery there. For some years Mr. Locker was Précis Writer in the Admiralty. He was twice married: first in 1850 to Lady Charlotte Christian, a daughter of the seventh Earl of Elgin, and secondly in 1874 to Hannah Jane, a daughter of the late Sir Curtis Miranda Lampson, Bart., of Rowfant, Sussex. On the death of his father-in-law in 1885 he added the name of Lampson to his own. He died at Rowfant on May the 30th, 1895.
One of Mr. Locker-Lampson's Book-plates.
Mr. Locker-Lampson tells us in his interesting autobiography entitled My Confidences, that he first collected pictures and rare sixteenth century engravings, but collectors with long purses outbid him, so he turned to old books: 'little volumes of poetry and the drama from about 1590 to 1610.' These formed the nucleus of his collection, which soon grew wide enough to include Caxtons and the works of the poets of the last century. Rare editions of Sidney, Spenser, Churchyard, Middleton, Herbert, Herrick, Dekker, Chapman, and many other writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, are to be found in it, and Shakespeare is splendidly represented by a perfect copy of the first folio, the first editions of Lucrece, the Sonnets and the Poems, and a large number—some thirty in all—of the quarto plays, many of which are the original editions. Mr. Locker-Lampson's folio wanted Ben Jonson's verses, and he gives an amusing account in My Confidences of an unsuccessful attempt to purchase a copy of them from a Mr. Dene, who possessed an imperfect first folio. He ultimately bought the precious leaf, which had been pasted in a scrap-book, for one hundred pounds, and so completed his copy. The library is also very rich in first editions of Byron, Tennyson, Browning, and other English poets of recent times, many of the volumes containing autograph inscriptions to Mr. Locker-Lampson himself. Mr. Locker-Lampson placed his library, together with his collections of autograph letters, pictures and drawings, in his residence at Rowfant, the beautiful home which he and his wife inherited from the lady's father; and a handsome catalogue of them published in 1886 by Mr. Quaritch, with an introduction by their owner, tells us of the treasures they contain. An etched portrait of Mr. Locker-Lampson and a sketch of his study are inserted in the volume, and Mr. Andrew Lang has prefixed some charming lines descriptive of the library:—
'The Rowfant books, how fair they show,
The Quarto quaint, the Aldine tall;
Print, autograph, Portfolio!
Back from the outer air they call
The athletes from the Tennis ball,
The Rhymer from his rod and hooks;
Would I could sing them, one and all,
The Rowfant books!
The Rowfant books! In sun and snow
They're dear, but most when tempests fall;
The folio towers above the row
As once, o'er minor prophets—Saul!
What jolly jest books, and what small
"Dear dumpy Twelves" to fill the nooks.
You do not find in every stall
The Rowfant books!
The Rowfant books! These long ago
Were chained within some College hall;
These manuscripts retain the glow
Of many a coloured capital;
While yet the Satires keep their gall,
While the Pastissier puzzles cooks,
There is a joy that does not pall,
The Rowfant books!
Envoy.
The Rowfant books,—ah magical
As famed Armida's golden looks.
They hold the Rhymer for their thrall—
The Rowfant books!'
In 1900 was published an Appendix to the Catalogue, the work of Mr. Frederick Locker-Lampson's son, Mr. Godfrey Locker-Lampson, consisting of additions to the library since the printing of the Catalogue in 1886, to which Mr. Andrew Lang again contributed some verses:—
'How often to the worthy Sire
Succeeds th' unworthy son!
Extinguished is the ancient fire,
Books were the idols of the Squire,
The graceless heir has none.
To Sotheby's go both old and new,
Bindings, and prose, and rhymes,
With Shakespeare as with Padeloup
The sportive lord has naught to do,
He reads The Sporting Times.
Behold a special act of grace,
On Rowfant shelves behold,
The well-loved honours keep their place,
And new-won glories half efface
The splendours of the old.'
The volume also contains verses by Mr. Austin Dobson, the Earl of Crewe, and Mr. Wilfrid Blunt.
WILLIAM MORRIS, 1834-1896
William Morris, the poet, art-designer, and manufacturer, was born at Elm House, Clay Hill, Walthamstow, Essex, on the 24th of March 1834. His father William Morris, a partner in the firm of Sanderson and Co., discount brokers, London, died in 1847, leaving him a considerable fortune. Young Morris was first educated at a preparatory school at Walthamstow, and afterwards at Marlborough, from whence he proceeded to Exeter College, Oxford. On leaving the University he wished to become a painter, but his studies were not sufficiently successful to warrant him carrying out his intention. He also paid some attention to the study of architecture. In 1858 he published a small volume entitled The Defence of Guenevere and other Poems, which received but little notice at the time; but The Life and Death of Jason, published in 1867, attracted general attention, and his reputation was further greatly increased by The Earthly Paradise, a poem in four volumes, which appeared in 1868-70. From that period until the time of his death Mr. Morris published a considerable number of other works, and, in collaboration with Mr. Eirikr Magnusson, some translations from the Icelandic. In 1863, in conjunction with D.G. Rossetti, E. Burne-Jones, and Ford Madox Brown, he established a factory for the production of artistic glass, tiles, wall-paper, etc., which has greatly contributed to the improvement of household decoration in England. A large number of the designs were the work of Mr. Morris himself, his leisure hours being devoted to literature, and it has been said of him 'that his poems were by Morris the wall-paper maker, and his wall-papers by Morris the poet.'
In 1891 Morris established a printing-press near his residence, Kelmscott House, on the Upper Mall, Hammersmith, from which he issued a series of beautiful and sumptuous reprints, principally of old books, with ornamentations by himself, and illustrations chiefly by Sir E. Burne-Jones. Of these reprints, which at the present time fetch large prices, that of Chaucer's Poems is considered the finest. In 1898 the trustees of Mr. Morris published 'A Note on his aims in founding the Kelmscott Press. Together with a short description of the Press by C.S. Cockerell, and an annotated list of the books printed thereat.' The list gives fifty-three works in sixty-three volumes and nine leaflets. This was the last book printed at the Kelmscott Press. It was finished at No. 14 Upper Mall, Hammersmith, on the 4th of March 1898. In it the aims of Morris in founding the Press are given in his own words. 'I began printing books,' he writes, 'with the hope of producing some which would have a definite claim to beauty, while at the same time they should be easy to read, and should not dazzle the eye, or trouble the intellect of the reader by eccentricity of form in the letters.' Mr. Morris, who died at Kelmscott House on the 3rd of October 1896, collected a fine and extensive library, which passed into the hands of a Manchester collector for, it is said, the sum of twenty thousand pounds. The purchaser, after selecting the books he required—about half of the MSS. and one-third of the printed books—sent the others to Sotheby, Wilkinson and Hodge, by whom they were sold on December 5th, 1898, and five following days. There were twelve hundred and fifteen lots in the sale, and the sum obtained for them was ten thousand nine hundred and ninety-two pounds, eleven shillings. All the books realised good prices, but the manuscripts were of greater interest and value than the printed volumes. The following are a few of the principal manuscripts, and the prices they fetched:—Testamentum Novum Latinum, Sæc. xii., vellum, handsomely illuminated, two hundred and twenty-five pounds; Hegesippus, De Excidio Judæorum, Sæc. xii., vellum, in the original Winchester binding, one hundred and eighty pounds; Biblia Sacra Latina, written on vellum about 1280, with handsomely painted initials, one hundred and thirty-nine pounds; Biblia Sacra Latina, vellum, written about 1300 by an Anglo-Norman scribe, with finely illuminated initials, three hundred and two pounds; Josephi Antiquitates Judaicæ et de Bello Judaico Libri, written on vellum by a French scribe in the thirteenth century, and beautifully illuminated, three hundred and five pounds; Missale Anglicanum, called the Sherbrooke Missal on account of it having belonged to the Sherbrooke family of Oxton, County Notts, a member of the family having inscribed his name in it about 1600; it was written in the fourteenth century on vellum, and has illuminated capitals and fine marginal decorations, three hundred and fifty pounds; Gratianus, Decretales, Sæc. xiv., vellum, with finely painted and illuminated initials, two hundred and fifty-five pounds; Virgilius Maro, Georgica et Æneis, written on vellum at the end of the fourteenth or beginning of the fifteenth century by an Italian scribe, with beautiful illuminated decorations, one hundred and sixty-four pounds; and Legenda Sanctæ Catherinæ de Senis, Sæc. xv., vellum, handsomely illuminated, one hundred and forty-nine pounds.
Some of the more notable printed books were:—S. Hieronymi Epistolæ, printed by Sweynheym and Pannartz at Rome in 1468, fifty-three pounds; Speculum Humanæ Salvationis Latino-Germanicum, printed by G. Zainer at Augsburg about 1471, one hundred pounds; Ptolomæi Cosmographia, Ulmæ, 1486, ninety-one pounds; Dives and Pauper, printed by Pynson in 1493, fifty-five pounds; Higden's Policronicon, 1495, Thordinary of Crysten Men, 1502, and The Orcharde of Syon, 1519, all from the press of Wynkyn de Worde, realised respectively thirty-eight pounds, fifty pounds, and one hundred and fifty-one pounds; Hystoire du Chevallier Perceval le Galloys, Paris, 1530, seventy-nine pounds; Epistole et Evangelii et Letioni Vulgari in lingua Thoscana, Firenze, 1551, eighty-nine pounds; and the Historie of the four Sonnes of Aimon, printed by William Copland in 1554, eighty-one pounds. Among the manuscripts retained were a twelfth-century English Bestiary, for which Mr. Morris gave nine hundred pounds; the 'Windmill' Psalter, written about 1270, which cost him upwards of a thousand pounds; the Huntingdon Psalter, and the Tiptoft Missal.